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A human rights group has warned the civil war in Syria is descending into a conflict of sectarian hatred and revenge killings after video footage emerged showing a rebel fighter appearing to take a bite out of a dead soldier’s heart.

The man, identified by the person filming the video as Abu Sakkar, cuts the heart and liver out of the body before using sectarian language to insult Alawites, the Shia Muslim sect that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and most of his inner circle belong to.

‘God Bless you, Abu Sakkar, you look like you are drawing [carving] a heart of love on him,’ a voice heard on the film says.

A Free Syrian Army fighter takes cover during clashes with the army in Aleppo (Picture: Reuters/File)

The man identified as Abu Sakkar, a prominent anti-government fighter from Homs linked to the shelling of Shia Muslim villages in Lebanon, is heard to reply: ‘I swear to God, soldiers of Bashar, you dogs – we will eat your heart and livers.’

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He then imitates trying to eat the viscera attached to the dead soldier’s organs.

Peter Bouckaert of HRW told the Reuters news agency: ‘The mutilation of the bodies of enemies is a war crime. But the even more serious issue is the very rapid descent into sectarian rhetoric and violence.’

Nadim Houry, Middle East deputy director at the organisation, added: ‘One important way to stop Syria’s daily horrors, from beheadings to mutilations to executions, is to strip all sides from their sense of impunity. These atrocities are shocking but so is the obstruction of some [United Nations] Security Council members that still do not support an [International Criminal Court] referral for all sides.’

Syrian troops in the village of Western Dumayna (Picture: AFP/Getty/File)

More than 80,000 people have died in Syria’s civil war, which began with a brutal government crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protests at the height of the Arab Spring in March 2011.